Duel
by JanSuch
Summary: AU: Takes place a few months after the Five injected themselves with the Source blood. Helen/Nikola/John Rated T for violence.


DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sanctuary or the Sanctuary characters, and I'm making no money from this.

A/N: This is a one-shot in an alternate universe without Adam Worth.

Helen sat in the parlor's window seat, looking out at a rainy afternoon. She missed the Five. They never got together any more. Nigel had been the first to leave, intent on "invisibility for fun and profit". She couldn't blame him really, he had little in common with the rest of them, and she could imagine how enticing it would be to wander about with no one knowing you were there.

And James was spending more and more of his time with the police, as the world's first and only "consulting detective". She did see him occasionally, he was interested as well in the abnormals she and her father protected and studied. He was a good friend, and she missed him a great deal, and hoped he would visit again soon, but his schedule was at the mercy of the criminal class.

Nikola spent most of his time in his laboratory, located in not the best part of town. He had invited her over once to see what he described as amazing displays of electricity, but she had a prior engagement and had to decline. She hoped he would invite her again, but he was so focused on his research she felt he was rather neglectful of her. She did offer him the use of her father's extensive library whenever he wished which brought him around occasionally. He had very little money, and felt subconscious in the library in his worn, foreign-cut suits. But he loved reading and was doggedly plowing through English literary classics.

And John was spending much of his time exploring the world. He had explained to her that he had to visualize where he was going in order to teleport, so he had to travel the slow mundane way going new places. Of course returning was almost instantaneous. And while that meant weeks without him at times, it also meant he had new places to show her. She had to smile at the memories of going to Vienna for lunch, a Sunday afternoon stroll on the Emerald Isle, or a simple afternoon shopping in Paris and home for dinner. And he had promised so much more that she was looking forward to- Spain, Russia, the Holy Land, and eventually the world. But he was traveling now, and she wasn't sure when he would be back.

She had to admit, she was a little jealous of them all. They had all gotten such marvelous gifts from the Source blood. She had gotten longevity, which was wonderful in itself, but she wished she had gotten something more immediate as well. After all, as a vampire Nikola had longevity, as well as healing and a formidable arsenal of natural defense weapons. James was sure his increase in intelligence did not come with the gift of long life, but Nigel and John weren't sure if their life span had been augmented or not.

She hoped John's life would be as long as hers. She didn't want to spend centuries without her fiancée. In fact, she didn't like him gone for months at a time. Without him she was usually left with her father as an escort, or occasionally James. James was preferable, he was much more fun than Father, but so was John and she could go anywhere with him without the least hint of impropriety.

That was something she hoped would change in time; as a woman she was treated like a child that had to be minded when she was quite capable of taking care of herself. Her father treated her no differently than he would a son in private, and she expected some day to take over his work. But publically there were rules, and one flouted them at the risk of being ostracized. Although she cared little about the opinions of society, John tended to be old-fashioned and protective, and she didn't like to distress him.

There were few people out on such an inhospitable day. She watched a woman huddled in a too-thin shawl hurry past; probably a maid in one of her neighbor's houses. A slender fellow with a worn overcoat pulled up around his ears came down the walk at a trot, and turned in at her gate. Nikola! Helen jumped up and went to the door, opening it just as he reached it.

"Nikola, it's good to see you. Come in and take off that wet coat. Come in the library, there's a fire where you can dry out."

Nikola carefully shrugged out of his coat so as not to splatter her with water, handing it to the butler, and extracting a small volume from the pocket. He followed her to his favorite room. The Magnus library was large and contained many volumes both old and new, and some quite rare.

Nikola handed her the book and warmed his front at the fire a moment and then turned his back to it and said "Helen, how have you been?" His accent had improved over the last few months, but it was still obvious he wasn't English.

"I've been well, and you?"

"Fine, fine. It was such a gray day, I hope you don't mind my coming unannounced."

"Not at all, I was bored. How did you like Chaucer?" she asked as she shelved the book.

Nikola laughed ruefully. "Perhaps I do not understand English as well as I thought."

Helen smiled. "Even native speakers can find him difficult. Would you like something else? Dickens perhaps, or poetry?"

He shrugged. "My work has been going slowly lately. I would like to put my mind on something different. Do you have anything unusual?"

Helen thought for a moment and then pointed at the top shelf of one bookcase. "There are some odd books up there. I could fetch a few down for you to look at."

"Of course you will not climb a ladder when I am capable of doing it." He slid the library ladder over and went up with agility. He began pulling out books and leafing through them. He had two in one hand when he leaned out to the side to reach a third and the still-damp soles of his shoes slipped on the rung of the ladder and he fell.

He hit his head on the bookcase as he fell and landed hard. He sprawled on the floor for a moment as Helen leapt to his side. She knew he was nearly indestructible as a vampire, but the loud crack of his head hitting the wood had alarmed her.

She could hear voices in the foyer, but ignored them. Nikola's head was bleeding badly, but even as she pressed her handkerchief to the wound it was closing. Nikola opened his eyes a little groggily, and she helped him sit up, and then to the settee. He blinked a couple of times, and then smiled at her.

As the door to the library opened, she still held his head in his hands, gently wiping off the last of the blood. She suddenly noticed how close they were sitting, the attractive curve of his mouth under that ridiculous mustache.

"Helen!" said an angry and very familiar voice.

"John?" Helen quickly got up and moved away from Nikola. They hadn't been doing anything wrong, but she knew what it might look like to someone else.

"What are you doing? And with _him_?" John advanced menacingly toward Nikola, who had just realized his position and stood to face him.

Helen quickly stepped in front of John, halting him. "John, there's nothing improper here. Nikola fell off of the ladder and I was just helping him. He hit his head. Look, see the blood on my handkerchief?"

John looked at the bloody bit of linen and relaxed a bit. But he was still angry. "You should never have been in a closed room alone with him. You know better, Helen. He's a foreigner and no gentleman. Heaven only knows what he might think to do."

Nikola took the diatribe calmly. He said reasonably "It is my blood, not hers."

"If it were hers, vampire or not, I would kill you."

Helen intervened "Nikola, you'd best leave now." She needed to give John time to calm down. It wasn't like him to become enraged over so little.

"I am very sorry if I damaged any of the books" Nikola said to Helen, gesturing at the three volumes on the floor. "I will pay for them, of course, if you wish."

Helen said "The books are fine, Nikola. Please leave now." She knew he would give up both food and fuel for his fire if he had to pay for the books; his pride was more important to him than his physical needs.

Nikola gave her a small bow, ignored John, and swept out to the foyer to collect his coat from the butler. She heard the front door close behind him, and let out the breath she found she had been holding. She turned to John.

"That was uncalled for. Nikola is my friend and he has never acted improperly with me. You owe him an apology."

John was frowning a little. "I'm sorry Helen. I don't know what came over me. When I saw you with him . . . all I could think of was how dangerous he is, and how much I want you to be with me and me alone." He spoke gently, and she smiled at him.

She went to him and put her arms around him. That was the man she loved, the big, strong, gentle man who was both a poet and a scientist. They held each other for a moment.

"I'm glad you're home" she said.

"So am I."

/

She didn't see Nikola for some weeks after that. Then one day she received an invitation in the mail to visit him in his lab in the evening the following week for a demonstration of electricity. She was relieved to see that John and her father were included in the invitation, so there was no question of impropriety.

But John didn't want to go. "You know we don't get along, Helen, and electricity can be dangerous. As a scientist, Tesla tends toward rather wild experiments that accomplish nothing and have no practical use; I don't think either of us should go." And that was his last word on the subject.

Helen was not about to give up the opportunity to see Nikola's work just because John was being pig-headed. The Serb was a brilliant young man, and she put down to jealousy John's assessment of his work. Her father agreed to take her, he found Nikola interesting, both as a scientist and as the only known vampire in existence.

But on the evening in question, the billikins came down sick, both of them. The furry little creatures were listless and not eating, and her father insisted that someone had to stay and give them medication hourly and nurse them through the night. Helen was bitterly disappointed; she had been looking forward to seeing Nikola's lab for days.

"What about James?" her father suggested. "He's always willing to accompany you."

"He's in Leeds working on a double murder investigation."

"Well then go yourself."

Helen brightened. "Do you think I could?"

"Why not? My dear, you can defend yourself better than most of the men I know. Take your little pop gun, you'll be perfectly safe. Tesla will see you to the cab on the way back, won't he?"

Helen smiled widely. "Of course he will. You don't think it's improper?"

"Oh bosh. You can handle Tesla and I doubt any society matrons are hanging about his lab. Go and have a good time."

She put her little two-shot pistol in her reticule, and the butler hailed a cab for her. She was excited throughout the entire ride, just for being out on her own at night. This was how things should be; she shouldn't be tied to a man's coattails all the time.

Nikola's lab was on a second floor walk-up. He heard the cab in the street below and came down and met her at the door. They clasped hands when they met, but Nikola looked past her, puzzled.

"John and your father did not come?"

Helen shook her head. "Two of our abnormals became ill this afternoon; Father had to stay with them. John had another engagement" she lied. She didn't want to tell Nikola how John had disparaged his work.

"It is alright though, for you to come alone?"

"Father said I should."

"Well then, welcome. Come up and I will show you my pretty lights."

Nikola did have a wonderful demonstration for her, creating electricity from what he called "the world's only alternating current generator", passing electricity through his body so that it danced off of the ends of his fingertips, and making it leap from rod to rod.

Helen was enthralled. She didn't even hear the heavy tread on the stairs until the door burst open, and John stood there glowering.

"John! You came, how nice." Helen's voice wavered.

"I did not come to see this foolishness; I followed you to your tryst with this scoundrel. I don't blame you Helen, you are too innocent to understand slime like him."

Helen was shocked. This wasn't the John she knew; why was he acting like this?

Nikola put down the rod he was demonstrating with and said tensely "John you know me. We have worked together, shared in the Source blood experiment. I would never harm Helen, or anyone else for that matter."

John's voice had gone soft, but there was rage in his eyes. "What you and I call harm dear boy is two very different things. Helen, I will see you home now."

Nikola looked at her, worried. "Helen, you don't have to go with him if you don't want to. I can take you home."

Helen could see John was close to exploding. Helen didn't want any violence, especially between two men she cared for. "John and I will go now. Thank you for the demonstration." She took John's arm and walked calmly to the door, pulling him with her.

John was quiet in the cab. Helen only said "Father said it was alright for me to go alone. He trusts me and he has no fear for my safety with Nikola. Nikola has always acted the perfect gentleman around me."

"Your father doesn't see what I see. I will take care of it."

Helen didn't know what he meant by that, but chose to drop the subject. Surely he would be more reasonable in the morning. The rest of the ride was in silence.

/

The next morning Nikola arrived at his lab to find a messenger waiting for him. The boy handed him an envelope and scampered off.

Nikola opened it to find a note from John.

_You are a low, conniving dastard and I will not permit you to continue to sully Helen's reputation. Because of our natures we cannot duel as gentlemen, but I will have satisfaction from you. Meet me on the green behind St. Mary's Church at one p.m. this afternoon. If you do not come I will know you are a coward and I will strike you down on sight as I would any other filthy rat._

_ Montagu John Druitt_

Nikola read the note again. This was unbelievable. John wanted to fight him? Even as a vampire Nikola doubted he had any chance at all in a fight with him. Druitt was at least six inches taller and more than fifty pounds heavier, as well as being athletic which Nikola was not. Nikola was a peaceful man who only wanted to make the wonderful things he saw in his head real. And perhaps to have a friend or two, but it seemed that would be denied him.

But his honor required him to go. He was difficult to kill or even harm seriously, but John Druitt had access to all of the world and more: fire, ice, great heights, the depths of the ocean, volcanic molten rock, perhaps even the moon or Mars. Druitt could quite possibly kill him, or leave him somewhere from which he could not return even if it was somewhere he could survive.

He looked around the lab. There was nothing there anyone else would understand or care about. He owned nothing valuable. He went to his corner desk and wrote a letter to his parents, sealed it and put their names on it. If he didn't come back, he hoped someone would be kind enough to mail it when they cleaned out his lab. Should he write one to Helen? What could he possibly say that would not make her feel responsible for his disappearance or death?

He decided against it. Alive or dead, he could very well end up on the other side of the earth by this afternoon. If he just disappeared, well, perhaps she would be sad for a little while, but her life would go on. And Druitt would tell her whatever he liked about why Nikola had left.

John would blacken his name with her. That Nikola could not bear. So he was just going to have to survive wasn't he, and come back when this "duel" was over.

/

John stood on the green grass in the afternoon sun. He was a little early, and enjoying the lovely weather they were having.

Some part of him wondered if what he was doing was right. What honor was there in breaking a man half his size? Even though Nikola was a vampire, John's ability to teleport anywhere was surely the equal of that. Still, the foreigner had threatened Helen's honor, and that John would not, could not tolerate.

John half hoped Nikola would run away rather than face him. Helen liked the little man and she would be very upset if she ever found out about this. But there was no way she could find out as long as John didn't tell her. The fight wouldn't be here, it would be far away in many other places. She would never know what happened, the Serbian pest would be gone, and he and Helen would a lifetime- perhaps many lifetimes- together.

Part of him enjoyed that thought. And a dark part of him relished the idea of tearing the vampire's head off, or gutting him and wrapping his entrails around his neck and choking him with them . . . so many possibilities. Humans would die quickly under such treatment, but Nikola could last a long time in agony. John fingered the long, razor-sharp knife under his coat. There were so many things one could do with such a tool, and he had barely begun to explore them.

Finally he saw Nikola striding down the street toward him, and then across the grass. Well, at least he had the nerve to show up.

"I am here" Nikola said, "but I think this is foolish. You are engaged to her, she loves you, I am just a friend. When you are married, you will not allow her to have friends? She will not be very happy if that is so. So why object so much to me now?"

"I'm not here to talk." John reached out his hand toward Nikola, who dodged aside.

"John, we have known each other for a long time. We are not close friends, that is true, but neither are we enemies. This is not like you, to want to attack someone simply because they are friends with Helen. What is wrong with you?"

John stalked toward him the whole time Nikola was talking, while Nikola backed away. Then John lunged for him, and Nikola didn't dodge, instead he released his vampire side and quickly moved in closer to John.

The teleport was almost immediate when John got a good grip on Nikola, but Nikola had already sunk his claws into John's shoulder. Nikola had only one strategy: stay with John no matter what, so that whatever happened to him, happened to John too. He was sure he could survive anything that John could.

They were dropping from a great height. Nikola had his right hand clenched, his claws deeply embedded through flesh and around bone. John's right hand held Nikola's left wrist, his claws only inches from John's face, while John tried with his left hand to get Nikola's claws out of his shoulder.

John tried to throw Nikola away from and he teleported, but Nikola's claws held and they landed floundering in deep, cold snow. John again grabbed Nikola's left wrist, but he used his greater weight to push Nikola down in the snow underneath him, and reached under his coat and pulled out his knife with his free hand. Nikola was mostly invisible under fluffy dry snow but John stabbed down into Nikola's chest. There was nothing Nikola could do without releasing his hold on John's shoulder.

John couldn't see his target well, and Nikola kept thrashing about making it harder to aim. He pulled the knife out, and plunged it in again, and again, turning the snow red. But he stabbed too high in Nikola's chest, and suddenly Nikola's fangs were in his hand. John howled and released the knife and pulled away long enough for Nikola to get his left wrist free, grab the knife and pull it out and throw it away into the snow.

John teleported, but Nikola hung on. He saw John take a deep breath right before the teleport, so he did his best to gasp in air too. Then they were deep under water. John used both hands to try to pry Nikola's claws from his shoulder, but that left Nikola's other hand free and he raked John's face. He could have killed John in that moment, but where would that leave him? John grabbed his wrist again, and they teleported.

It was night, but there was light and heat behind Nikola- fire. There were people around, but they fled from the double apparition that suddenly appeared in their midst. John used his greater height to push Nikola back into the fire, but Nikola used his strength to pull John in with him. They were both burning when they teleported.

They were back into very cold water again, but on the surface this time. Steam hissed as the water roiled away from them and the fires went out. John tried to push Nikola away from him and roared "Get off of me!"

Nikola shook his head and hung on. "Not until you take us back."

Part of John wanted to keep fighting. He was the injured party and he was much bigger, he should win in a hand-to-hand fight. But something inside of him was saying "No more; there is easier prey." That something liked to give terror and pain, but didn't like being on the receiving end.

They teleported and were back on the grass behind the church. Nikola unclenched his hand, released John's shoulder, and stepped back out of reach. They stood panting and glaring at each other, both wet and bloody and burned.

"Vell" Nikola said, his accent stronger than usual, "dat vas unpleasant, do you vant to go again?"

John shook his head. "Just stay away from Helen."

Nikola shrugged. "Dat is her decision, not yours." He walked away.

/

Helen was horrified when she saw John the next day. He had deep parallel scratches on his face and his left arm was in a sling. He told her he had been hit by a runaway carriage, but she didn't believe him; the scratches were too evenly spaced.

James was back in town to investigate a grisly murder in Whitechapel. She sent him to check on Nikola, but he reported back that he was fine. Helen wondered, but she refused to challenge John's story; she he no proof he wasn't telling the truth.

Two weeks later, Helen received a note from Nikola. She was happy to see his careful handwriting on the envelope and hoped it was another invitation. She missed seeing him, even though John had decided to give up traveling for a while and was spending a good deal of time with her during the day, although she rarely saw him in the evening.

But when she opened it, she was disappointed. It was a goodbye letter.

_My Dear Helen,_

_ I have received a job offer from Mr. Edison in America. He is a great inventor and I cannot pass up this opportunity to work with him. I am sorry I must leave so suddenly, but this cannot wait. I hope you will not miss your Nikola too much. Thank you for your many kindnesses to a poor foreigner. I will send you my address when I arrive, perhaps someday you will come again to visit my lab in my new home._

_ Your Faithful Friend,_

_ Nikola T._

Helen felt tears in her eyes. Now the Five were well and truly scattered. She had the strangest feeling they would ever be together again. Well, at least she would always have John, wouldn't she?


End file.
